


The Internet Is For... (Elevator Remix, 12" Version)

by helens78



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Canon Disabled Character, Disabled Character, First Time, Humor, M/M, Remix, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:57:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik's got a particular gifset in his bookmarks, but when he and Charles Xavier get a little closer, the guy in the gifset takes a backseat to the guy downstairs.  A modern, no-powers, college AU based on <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/768505">The Internet Is For...</a> by <a href="http://ao3.org/users/firstlightofeos">firstlightofeos</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Internet Is For... (Elevator Remix, 12" Version)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firstlightofeos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstlightofeos/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Internet is for...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/768505) by [firstlightofeos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstlightofeos/pseuds/firstlightofeos). 



Erik doesn't know why he keeps Azazel in his "following" list sometimes; if anyone's going to tag things "#safe for work" while actually showing off hardcore porn, it's Azazel. His posts and reblogs come across Erik's dashboard again and again, making Erik sorry he ever checks Tumblr at the library, let alone in the study lounges at his dorm. The one with the different types of mating rituals was particularly bad; he had to scroll through ten pictures of different types of animals screwing, followed by a flood of .gifs of more and more (Erik didn't realize some of those species _existed_ , let alone had been captured having sex).

But then one day Azazel reblogs a photoset of a man putting on his jeans-- nothing showing above the torso, just a practically-disembodied set of abs and thighs and cock and balls and ass.

Erik bookmarks the original post-- someone who calls himself ' **unzipmygenes** '-- and decides he can forgive Azazel for everything. He definitely isn't going to Tumblr Savior Azazel off his dashboard, that's for sure.

***

The resident computer assistant in Erik's dorm is a fellow student named Charles Xavier. He's notable for all kinds of reasons-- for one, despite actually being a post-graduate student, he's the same age as the undergrads. He must be an actual, certifiable genius, the kind of person who never needs to study, because something else he's notable for is the ridiculous loud parties he has in his room every week or so.

Erik knows all about them, because Erik has the misfortune to have the room just above Charles's. The bass is so loud sometimes it rattles Erik's desk. He just can't bring himself to complain to Charles about it. For one thing, Erik might actually develop computer trouble one day, in which case he'll want to be on Charles's good side.

For another, the few times he's tried to have a conversation with Charles, Charles has done something perfectly reasonable like lick his lips, and Erik's been lucky to put one word in front of another, let alone have those words make sense.

Notable facts about Charles, continued: Erik is fairly sure Charles is the most well-laid student in the dorm. Again, having the room just above Charles's leaves Erik privy to a lot of sounds he probably isn't meant to hear. If the moans Charles wrings out of his one-night stands is anything to go by, whatever he does to them is worth every moment of the walk of shame they end up taking, past Erik's window and down Claremont Street to whichever dorm they call their own.

Once in a while Erik has to stumble down to the first floor in order to brush his teeth or take a shower in the morning; with only two shower stalls on the second floor, there are times they fill up. The first floor has two shower stalls, but it also has a wheelchair-accessible stall with a full bathtub that has a hand shower. It seems like every Erik ends up with a towel draped around his waist and his shower basket in one hand, shower shoes making stupid noises as he walks into the first-floor men's room, Charles just happens to be maneuvering in or out of that wheelchair-accesible stall.

Charles, for his part, looks ridiculously good in the mornings. He's always wrapped up in a fluffy blue robe, hair mussed, lips already so red Erik's imagined trying to rub the color off them. With a variety of body parts.

Sometimes Charles yawns and waves at Erik as he disappears into the stall, and once, when Erik was still blinking sleep out of his eyes, Charles had come out of the stall-- hair damp, curling against his temples and the back of his neck-- and asked if he wanted to go get coffee before class.

"You look like you need it," Charles had said, voice as much a tease as anything Erik had heard in weeks, and then the son of a bitch had licked his lips for good measure.

"Don't need anything," Erik had said abruptly, "thanks," and he'd somehow gotten into the shower stall before his towel had started to tent too obviously.

It's okay, actually. He's got the gifs from **unzipmygenes** in his go-to porn folder; he's been jerking it to those images for weeks now. It's almost better than having a real-life boyfriend; the guy in the gifs never gets tired, never says he's got to study, never gets on Erik's case if _he_ needs a night or two or three to get through all those ridiculous essays. If Erik thought about the fact that the guy in the gifs has been his most satisfying relationship since he got to college, it might seem depressing. Fortunately, he doesn't think about it.

***

The Sunday before midterms week-- also known as the last night before 22-hour quiet hours go into effect-- Erik walks into the building and groans out loud. Charles has a party going in full swing, and it's loud enough Erik isn't going to manage to get any studying done, he just knows it. He wonders if it's too late to head back to the library and find an empty carrel to sleep in, or if the full-body ache would kill any brain cells that managed to get any useful studying in. Probably so; he'll have to resort to earplugs and hope that Charles's bass doesn't rattle anything off his shelves.

He's nearly to the stairwell when a voice rings out behind him, and there's Charles, his head and knees and the front half of his chair's wheels poking out through his doorway. "Erik! Don't go, we're only just getting started!"

"I've got a midterm tomorrow," Erik says, but he's already turning around, making his way back toward Charles's door. Charles meets him partway, turning on a dime to face Erik, coming partway down the hall. He's wearing his half-gloves again; doesn't he know what those do to Erik? He should. Erik's wearing his tightest pair of jeans today, and he's so out of laundry he isn't wearing any boxers, either. "I really need some sleep."

"Or," Charles says, smiling up at him, "you could just relax. Have a drink. Take your mind off it for a while." Erik's just about to turn him down cold when Charles licks his lips again, _fuck_. "Come on." He cranes his head back and calls into his room, "Raven! Could you make my friend one of your enhanced screwdrivers, please?"

"Got it," someone else calls out, and a few seconds later, a gorgeous blonde girl comes out of the doorway, too, holding out a red Solo cup and grinning. "Oh, is this _Erik_? Hi, Erik!"

"Raven," Charles growls over his shoulder. He takes the Solo cup and hands it over to Erik; Erik doesn't really know what else to do, so he takes charge of it, and under the watchful eyes of whoever-Raven-is and Charles, takes a swig. "Not bad, is it? It's her own invention--"

"Garden-variety screwdriver with a splash of amaretto," she informs him. "So, hi. I'm Charles's sister." She must be. She's comfortable enough with Charles to lean over his shoulder and offer Erik a handshake. Erik just raises an eyebrow at her. It seems pretty rude to shake hands right over Charles, and besides which, if he did, his groin would be close to Charles's eye level, and... no. After a second, Raven takes her hand back, and rolls her eyes.

"Nice to meet you," Erik says.

"Whatever. Come in and dance if you feel like it. Oh, and we've got a karaoke machine, too, although it looks like all Charles has for it is a Journey tape and maybe some Bon Jovi."

"I have Greatest Hits of the '80s, '90s, and '00s," Charles says, pronouncing the last as _double-aughts_. That shouldn't be so damned adorable, but it is. Charles looks up at Erik with a smile, and there it is, Erik's version of Kryptonite. "Maybe there's something in there you'd like to sing."

"I don't sing," Erik protests.

"You use the first-floor shower sometimes," Charles says. And then, fuck it, Erik's done-- he licks his lips. "You do sing, my friend. You ought to show them what you're made of."

Erik takes a long drink of that screwdriver. The amaretto helps, as it turns out. And he sighs, giving up on studying for the night, and heads into Charles's room with the rest of them.

***

The gifset from **unzipmygenes** was first posted three years ago. Erik wonders, sometimes, what the man in the gifs gets up to these days. Where he goes to school. Whether he's graduated. If those were even of unzipmygenes in the first place, or if he screencapped them himself from some porno or webcam model he'd been watching.

It's more or less... more _than_ less... pathetic, that those gifs are the first thing Erik thinks of when he wakes up. Then he remembers last night's party, and his head starts pounding, and he really was much better off thinking about those gifs after all, wasn't he.

God. Had he really gotten up and sung "It's My Life" in front of a cheering, crowded dorm room? _Fuck._

And yet: he has vague memories of Charles's laugh, of Charles smiling directly at him, as though there were no one else in the room. He remembers Charles leaning close to him, Charles's hand on his knee... the awkwardness of not knowing where to touch Charles (the knee might not be the best place, he's not entirely sure how Charles's disability works), or if he even should... Charles's breath hot against his ear...

Oh, God. He buries his head under a pillow. God, no, what could he have been thinking?

Since the beginning of the school year, he's had one eye on Charles. He couldn't help it. The smile, the laugh, Charles's long, pale neck, Charles's shoulders, the wavy brown hair, the startling blue eyes, his biceps, the cheerful British accent, the way Charles bites his lips until they're so red they look painted, the man is _fucking irresistible_ , and Erik knows full well if he let himself be drawn in, he'd never get himself out again. It would be so easy to be one of those idiots who ends up following Charles around, volunteering to open doors and carry books, getting the _It's not you, darling, it's me_ speech that Erik has heard not just once but three times-- once as he was coming into the dorm, once as he was leaving it, and once, memorably, out the window, with Charles's voice carrying up during a breezy fall day.

It's never them, it's always Charles, and Erik decided before he even met Charles that he couldn't handle being treated as though he were disposable. Replaceable. One in an infinite series of one-night-stands.

He's sure he didn't kiss Charles, or go further; he wasn't _that_ drunk. But if he said something that gave his game away, he might be fucked. And if so, well, he knows what happens after one of Charles's one-night-stands gets fucked.

He puts the URL for **unzipmygenes** into his browser out of self-preservation, because that cock and that ass have been the most wildly distracting thing he's run into in all the months he's known Charles Xavier. But he hits a button wrong, because he gets the main blog instead of the specific post he has bookmarked, and that startles him for a moment.

It had never occurred to him that **unzipmygenes** might still be around. There were a number of posts leading up to and away from the infamous gifset, but nothing for eleven months solid, and Erik's checked. Today, though, there's a picture of a slender man in a towel, his face not showing, his torso well-defined with lean muscle.

The picture has a dozen comments, most of them inane things like "lksdflad" and "DO WANT". The last one seems to have been from **unzipmygenes** himself, though.

> I miss shower sex...

Erik blinks. **unzipmygenes** is _single_?

Today of all days, the second-floor bathroom is full and the first-floor bathroom is empty-- completely empty-- and Erik rushes through his shower, hoping he has time for this. Oh, God, maybe he has time.

His hand on that cock, that gorgeous cock, his fingers pressing into that ass, _I miss shower sex_ , oh God, Erik misses it too, misses _any_ kind of sex, but fuck it, his fantasy gif boyfriend won't leave him, won't trade him in on the next one to come around and make an offer, he'll just tell Erik that he's _so good so hot just right yes_ \--

The door opens, closes, no footsteps. Erik cups his hand around the head of his cock, catching his come, hoping it isn't too obvious what he's doing, did they go away, he doesn't hear anyone--

\--except he does, then, a soft hum, someone singing faintly: "...It's now or never... I ain't gonna live forever... I'm just gonna live while I'm alive..."

Behind him, a door opens, another pause, a door closes. The wheelchair-accessible stall, of course.

"Something something open something... a fantasy, I did it my way..."

"'Like Frankie said'," Erik corrects automatically-- _WHY, Erik, God, SHUT UP_ \-- and the humming stops.

"Um. Right," Charles calls out. "Thanks, Erik."

_Don't mention it,_ Erik thinks. _Please. Ever._ What was he _thinking_?

He washes his hands off, come swirling down the drain with soap suds, and gets out of the bathroom as fast as he can.

***

Somehow Erik doesn't run into Charles, or any of Charles's walk-of-shamers, for the next couple of weeks. But when spring break rolls around and almost everyone else has gone, there's a knock at Erik's open door.

"Would you believe it? There's only the two of us left in this whole wing of the building," Charles says, grinning. He's got a travel chess set in his lap and a bottle of wine tucked between his legs. "East wing still has Freddie and Marc and Jacob, South wing has a few people, I think, but believe me, if it's try and get a game of chess with you or suffer through some kind of sporting event on telly with the three finance majors, I'll bribe you with wine."

"You didn't have to bring wine," Erik says. He can only resist smiling for so long. "But since you've got it..."

Since he's got it, they set up the chessboard on the corner of Erik's desk and split the bottle. It's a nice red, French, and Charles even explains where it's from, but the words go in one ear and out the other. Erik's too busy looking at the way Charles's Adam's apple bobs when he swallows, and how the purplish stain on his tongue and lips makes him look even more absurdly hot.

Erik's not made of steel. Not mostly. Not really. He catches Charles's hand, when Charles next reaches over to move a piece, and it's mutual when they lean over the chessboard and kiss.

"Oh," Charles murmurs, his other hand coming up to cup Erik's face. "I thought we'd have to work our way up to that all week long."

"I guess not," Erik says, his forehead resting against Charles's. "I know I probably don't need to ask, but... is there anyone out there whose toes I'm stepping on?"

"No. Not at all." Charles smiles, his thumb rubbing Erik's lower lip. "Anyone whose toes I'm rolling over?"

"Only if you count the porn bookmarks on my hard drive."

Charles laughs. "I kept hoping you'd wind up with some sort of virus, that you'd need my help getting your laptop back in order. I thought it'd make a good overture, at least..."

"No such luck. Most of my porn comes from Tumblr, rather than dodgy websites that open a thousand windows. Learned my lesson when I was still living at home."

"Good for you." Charles leans in a little and sweeps his tongue across Erik's lower lip, following the path his thumb made. "Maybe you can show me sometime anyway."

It's the perfect time to take a chance. Erik says, "Play your cards right this week and we'll see."

That makes Charles smile at him, smile so widely Erik can actually feel the way Charles's lips curve and stretch. "I didn't bring any cards," he says. "Maybe for our _second_ date."

"I like the sound of that," Erik breathes, relief lighting him up, and he slides both his hands onto Charles's shoulders, kissing him again.

There's a tug-of-war after a few minutes of increasingly desperate kisses, Erik trying to guide Charles to the bed, Charles trying to pull Erik into his lap. Erik winces-- he's never been with-- "I don't know how to, ah, what do you like, where should I touch you," Erik says, and Charles gets a surprisingly strong grip on Erik's wrists and _tugs_ , seating Erik in his lap after all. It turns out there's a bit of a height difference, something Erik never really accounted for since Charles is always in his chair, but Erik doesn't mind bending down to kiss Charles again and again, especially not when it means Charles's throat is stretched out in a beautiful pale line, just perfect for Erik to stroke and touch and caress.

"There," Charles pants, "there, _there_ , you should touch me there, I like that, that feels so good, Erik--"

"Anything you want," Erik promises, oh God, he's gone, he's lost, there's no coming back from this. He curves both hands around the sides of Charles's neck and strokes his thumbs up and down his throat, gentle as a whisper. Charles shudders underneath him, his arms going hard around Erik's waist, and Erik stops overthinking this-- if Charles wants Erik to move, he'll say so. "Charles, God, I need you, I need-- _yes_ \--"

He kisses Charles again, rocking down against Charles's lap, his legs hung over the sides of Charles's chair. There are no armrests to get in the way, just the top curve of the wheels, and it's easy, it feels perfectly natural now that they're here. Charles slips a hand between them, squeezing Erik's cock, and Erik throws his head back, his nails biting into the back of Charles's neck.

"Charles--"

"Yes, oh God, show me, Erik, just this once _show_ me--"

There's not a chance Erik could hold back, not now. He comes in his jeans, without even having made an attempt to get out of them. Uncomfortable as it is, it feels good, too-- like he was proving how much he's wanted this, like he was setting that feeling free.

His brain cells come back to him in clusters, and one cluster remembers... "Just this once?"

Charles blinks at him, licking his lips and frowning slightly. "What?"

"You said. You said, just this once..."

"Oh! God," Charles laughs, "no. I meant, just this once, erm, without getting out of these..." He hooks a finger through Erik's belt loop. "I certainly don't want it to be 'just this once', the two of us. I've been waiting for you all year long."

Erik can actually feel his heart pounding beneath his ribcage. "I was always here," he murmurs.

"So was I." Charles tilts his head up and kisses Erik again. "Now we know."

***

There are some things that aren't storybook about their spring break romance. They can't sleep together, for one thing; twin beds are hard enough to fit two people into at the best of times, and Charles needs his adjustable mattress anyway. But Erik always says goodnight to him, whether that's a matter of going down in the elevator with him and kissing him goodnight at his door, or letting himself out of Charles's room in the wee small hours of the morning, and that counts for a lot.

Charles _can_ get hard, but it's a matter of taking Viagra, and even then-- "It's not my favorite thing," he admits, "but I'd be happy to, if you'd like it." Erik defers that, at least for the moment; he'd rather explore all the things that _are_ on Charles's favorites list, for now.

Charles's favorites include touching, kissing, licking, biting... that mouth of his, inspiration for so many of Erik's fantasies, turns out to be better than Erik could ever have imagined. He likes being touched, too, likes it when Erik's lying on top of him and touching his chest, sucking on his nipples, drawing Charles's earlobes between his teeth, biting his neck nearly to the point of leaving marks.

Erik mostly remembers Charles's partners making noise, all those nights when Charles had company. With everyone away for the week, he almost isn't mortified that he's outdoing them all. He wasn't a virgin before, but he didn't realize he was a screamer, either. Then again, he didn't realize Charles would be a screamer himself, and more than once Erik makes Charles cry out, yelling _his name_. His name. If Charles shouted like that for anyone else, Erik never heard it.

"Don't look so smug," Charles mumbles, once, but he smiles as he says it. He strokes the backs of his fingers down Erik's cheek, and they fit themselves together for a short nap, both of them utterly content.

***

People start coming back to school on Sunday. At first, Erik isn't sure whether things between himself and Charles are going to change, but considering that Charles leaves his door wide open even when he's got Erik straddling his lap and they're necking, it seems like they might just stay this way indefinitely. Erik can live with that.

"My eyes! Oh, God."

"Raven..." Charles stops kissing Erik for a moment and leans to the side, looking past Erik toward the doorway. "Aren't you in the wrong dorm? Or did you just come here to harass me and my delectable boyfriend?"

"Your what?" Erik asks, just as Raven's saying, "About damn time! Finally!"

Charles looks up at Erik, both eyebrows raised in concern. "I thought--"

"I wasn't sure you wanted to--"

"Okay, okay, you know what, I _really_ shouldn't be interrupting this conversation-- I'll show myself out," Raven says. "If you see Hank, let him know I'm looking for him, all right?"

"All right," Charles says, and Raven goes, closing the door gently behind her.

Erik slips off Charles's lap and takes a seat on the bed. "You never used to use the B-word with anyone," Erik says. "I wasn't sure you wanted to put a name on it."

"Well, 'boyfriend' or 'gentleman caller' or 'suitor' or--"

"'Suitor'? You make it sound like I should have a tie on."

Charles grins, moving over so he's just in front of Erik, reaching out to put his hands on Erik's knees. "I could put a tie on you," he murmurs, his tongue poking out between his lips. He curves his hands around Erik's wrists, holding on very gently. "Or a pair of ties. I have plenty."

They wrinkle the hell out of a red tie and a purple tie, and it's only afterward, when Erik has to run upstairs for his laptop, that he realizes a few words didn't make it onto the short list. _Partner. Lover._

He won't bring it up if Charles doesn't. Anyway, 'boyfriend' is further than he ever expected to get with Charles; it's fine if that's as far as it goes.

***

A week or so after spring break ends, they're miraculously still together. Today he and Charles both have papers to write, things to finish up for class, and squishing in side-by-side on Charles's adjustable bed turns out to be more comfortable than Erik would have guessed.

Charles leans over and rests his head on Erik's shoulder from time to time, and Erik ends up kissing Charles's hair half the times he does it. He can feel Charles's cheek curving into a smile when he does.

"I need a making-out break," Charles announces, closing up his laptop and setting it aside. "What about you?"

"Don't I always?" Erik turns and wraps his arms around Charles's shoulders, and Charles kisses him, lets his tongue slide hard against Erik's. The way Charles kisses, sometimes it's like he wants to fuck Erik's mouth with his tongue, and Erik's up for that, definitely.

Charles slides a hand onto Erik's thigh, not quite dislodging Erik's laptop. Erik starts to move the laptop aside, but Charles catches his wrist. He breaks off the kiss, looking up at Erik with a sly gleam in his eyes.

"What?"

"You don't happen to have any porn on your laptop, do you?"

Erik flashes him a smile. "You're the RCA. I'm sure you can find it if you look hard enough."

"That sounds like a challenge." But it isn't much of one; it's not like Erik shares his laptop with anyone, so Charles just pulls up Erik's web browser, looks in his bookmarks, and clicks on the one that's labeled "Cock and Ass Guy."

It takes a few seconds for **unzipmygenes** to load up, during which Erik slips his hand onto Charles's cheek, turning Charles back towards him for another kiss. But a few seconds later, Charles jerks away, staring at the laptop, hand tight on Erik's thigh now.

"What?"

Charles doesn't answer. Erik puts a hand over Charles's, rubbing at it until Charles seems to realize how hard he's gripping, and abruptly takes his hand away, leaning as far away from Erik as he can.

"If you don't like it, I've got other bookmarks--"

"No," Charles snaps, still staring at the gifset. "This is-- this is what you like," he forces out. "This is something you get off to?"

Now is probably not the time to tell Charles, _Yes, and until you, this gifset was my most satisfying sex partner._ In fact, Erik's not so sure that admitting to beating off to these gifs is a good idea at all.

But he's not going to lie to Charles. "I used to," he admits. "I haven't really done much wanking since we started..."

"Fooling around," Charles supplies brusquely.

Erik winces. He'd been meaning to say _dating_ , but they haven't technically been out on any dates. "Charles--"

"Well, I'm glad I can keep you occupied, at least," Charles says. Sarcasm drips off every word.

And Erik has no idea what this conversation is about. He shuts his laptop and turns to face Charles. "What's wrong here? What did I do?"

Charles exhales and lets his head drop back. "All the things in the world you want to wank to, and it's _that_ \-- someone getting into his jeans? It's not even porn, Erik, not really--"

"No, it's not," Erik admits. "It's just-- I love the motion, it's sexy, it's _cute_ \--"

"Right." Charles glares over at him. "The _motion_."

Again, Erik winces. Charles's disability hasn't really come up in conversation much, except for when it seemed relevant-- the talk they had about Viagra, Charles's apology about not being able to sleep in the same bed with Erik, at least not here in the dormitory. He's always known Charles this way: disabled, using a wheelchair to get around, strong and confident and sexy as fuck. He always figured that asking _So what happened?_ would be one of those douchebag questions, the kind of thing that smacks of gawking and caring more about the chair than the man who uses it. He assumed Charles would either tell him or not, and it wasn't up to Erik to decide when or how that happened.

But it's true that Charles doesn't have an ass like Cock and Ass Guy, that Erik's never felt Charles get hard in his hand. When Charles gets dressed, it doesn't look like that; it's a process of balancing himself on one hand and using the other to draw up his boxers. He's quick at it, and Erik even finds it sexy in its own right-- Charles has _amazing_ arms and shoulders-- but getting dressed for Charles is never going to mean a teasing display of a bouncing curve of cheek and a long, half-hard dick.

"Charles," Erik tries again. "It's just some guy on Tumblr. A friend reblogged it months ago."

"Which friend?" Charles asks sharply.

"Azazel."

Charles nods slowly, and then pinches the bridge of his nose and nods again.

"Charles..."

"I need a moment."

Erik backs off, waiting.

"I meant--" Charles looks up at him. "I need a moment _alone_."

Erik feels a cold knot twisting in the pit of his stomach, but he nods anyway. He gathers up his laptop and heads upstairs to his own room, wishing he'd never seen those damn gifs. When he gets to his room, he deletes the bookmark, purges his browser history, and deletes the pictures off his hard drive. He doesn't need Cock and Ass Guy. He just hopes he still has a boyfriend, after Charles has had his moment alone.

***

Charles's room downstairs has been quiet, Charles hasn't sent Erik a text or an IM or an email, and Erik's managed to finish the paper he was working on earlier as well as both of tomorrow's reading assignments. There's not much to do other than load up the usual websites again-- if he gets desperate, he can always dive into TVTropes or Cracked, or even get lost in Wikipedia. There's always something.

He makes a strangled noise when his Tumblr dashboard loads. The first thing on his dash is a post from **unzipmygenes** , and it's a reblog of _that gifset_. Why the hell didn't he unfollow Cock and Ass Guy when he had the chance?

Well, he can sure as hell unfollow him now. If he can remember how to... fuck. Well, he can pull up the post itself, and that ought to have an "unfollow" button in the top right corner, that's something.

He clicks through to the post and waits for it to load, and he refuses to look at the fucking gifset, that's not why he's here. He looks down at the bottom of the page while he waits for Tumblr's "unfollow" button to load-- why is that always the last damn thing to load, particularly when you need it _right now_ \-- but just as his finger's hovering over the button, he takes in what's been added to the gifset, the comment left on it by... apparently, by **unzipmygenes** himself.

> I guess it's true what they say... once you've posted something on the internet, it lives forever.
> 
> Imagine taking a little bit of video of yourself on a lark, posting it and thinking no one was ever going to see it, and then discovering that your boyfriend has it in his porn bookmarks.
> 
> But wait!, you say, _how could he have not known it was you?_ Most of us like to think our cocks are somewhat memorable. I could certainly pick my boyfriend's out of a lineup (admittedly, he has a *hemhem* _sizeable_ advantage (shut up, I'm allowed to brag)).
> 
> Except...

Erik gets that far before there's a knock on his door. He turns around, and there's Charles, in his doorway, with-- God help them both-- a bouquet of flowers in his lap.

"Do you mind if I come in?"

"No, I was just--" Erik takes a deep breath, looking at Charles. "I was just reading your post. On Tumblr."

"Erik, I am so, so sorry." Charles bites his lower lip and comes into the room, pulling right up beside Erik and offering him the flowers. "I know that must have seemed insane, this afternoon."

"Can I be honest-- I'm still not sure what happened, exactly," Erik admits. "I mean... now that I know it's you, I do feel like a little bit of a creep. I spent months beating off to pictures of--" He gestures back over his shoulder at his computer. "Well. You. It's different from beating off to random people in porn."

"Maybe, but I did put those gifs online in the first place," Charles says. He sighs. "They're from two years ago. About eight months before I got into the accident." He thumps his knuckles on the left rim of his chair. "You know, you're the first person I've had a relationship with since I lost my legs? And you never seemed to mind that I'm not able-bodied. You just kept looking at my mouth..."

"It's worth looking at," Erik says.

"So was the rest of me," Charles says, eyeing Erik's laptop again. The bottom row of gifs is still visible, not yet scrolled off the screen.

"So _is_ the rest of you," Erik insists. "So we fuck in different configurations than the norm-- so what? You're gorgeous. You turn me on, you get me off--"

"I got you off before," Charles says, his eyes cutting a path to those fucking gifs again. "Most of the time I'm good at taking this in stride, but I hate that I can't-- that this is as close as you're ever going to get to having that from me." He waves a hand at Erik's laptop. "That's as close as we can get to that. I'm not going to get better, Erik. This is something I'm going to be living with for the rest of my life."

"That's okay with me," Erik says. Charles blinks at him. "I mean-- obviously you don't need my permission or my approval, I'm just saying--" He takes a deep breath. "I'm just saying. I'm not going anywhere. And I'm not looking for--" He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "I don't need Cock And Ass Guy. But I--"

Charles is biting hard into his lower lip, and he's staring at Erik with those huge, blue eyes of his. His eyes are shining, just a little, and that makes Erik lean in, cupping Charles's face in his hands.

"I love you," Erik whispers. Charles rests his hands over Erik's, his eyes closing. "I thought maybe you'd figured that out by now."

"Just waiting for you to say it out loud," Charles whispers back, and he catches Erik by the shirt, pulling Erik into his lap again, tugging Erik down for a long, heartfelt kiss.

***

_epilogue_

It's always the highlight of his day when **unzipmygenes** posts a new gifset. Erik hops up from his desk and closes the door, and takes a nice leisurely look at the gifset, already squirming.

This time, the gifset is of a man's torso-- muscular and gorgeous, wearing only a thin white undershirt. Erik groans a little as the man in the gif peels his undershirt off, the gif running in slow motion. He can make out freckles, dense over the man's shoulders, fading slightly as they get further down his chest, and oh, God, his trapezius muscles, Erik wants to bite into them. In fact... there's a slight hint of a mark on his left shoulder, now that Erik looks more carefully. Erik grins.

Over and over, that undershirt comes up, starts to come off-- but it's the second gif that shows all the definition in the man's arms and shoulders and chest; the tightly muscled forearms; the short, blunt fingernails; the sharp joints of his thumbs. Strong hands, ones that Erik knows as well as he knows his own, by now.

There's a comment at the bottom of the gifset, and Erik grins as he sees it.

> Confidential to BF: Now that I have your dick's attention, get downstairs. XOXO

He reblogs it, adding just one word: _Bossy._

But he's out the door like a shot, just as soon as the reblog goes through. He'll bookmark that post later, probably as _Abs and Chest Guy_ , but for now he has every intention of showing Abs and Chest Guy his appreciation in person.

**Author's Note:**

> As used in the original, here are the gifsets (you'll have to squint at them a bit, and imagine Charles sitting in a wheelchair while he takes off his shirt in the second one!):
> 
> 1) Cock and Ass Guy (NSFW): http://groovyphilia.tumblr.com/post/45919471665  
> 2) Abs and Chest Guy (NSFW-ish): http://zeroisnottheone.tumblr.com/post/48015208527


End file.
